Calling Synology Users

I've given up trying to get external access using this method. I've setup a VPN which partly works, just need to configure the router!
 
What do you want to do remotely?

I'm a big fan of keeping everything locked down as much as possible. I only need to connect to mine when I'm at home, but I can VPN through my router if I need to.

There is some kind of quickconnect thing you can use, I've never bothered looking into that side of it though.

edit

https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/tutorials/614
 
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bledd. said:
What do you want to do remotely?

I'm a big fan of keeping everything locked down as much as possible. I only need to connect to mine when I'm at home, but I can VPN through my router if I need to.

There is some kind of quickconnect thing you can use, I've never bothered looking into that side of it though.

edit

https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/tutorials/614
Click to expand...

I was going to setup external access for a few mates to share stuff. I'm already using the quick connect from work, which works perfectly. I've now setup VPN for my NAS which I will finish configuring when I get home - ports need to be opened.

EDIT

You said you VPN to your router? Does it have a VPN Server? Could I use my NAS to host the VPN to remote home?
 
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Just use OpenVPN, you can host it on ASUS routers (mine is with Merlin's firmware, unsure if the standard one supports it). It's probably the most secure way of doing it.

No need to faff about with port forwarding for multiple devices, just act as if you're at home.

If your router doesn't support it then you can run it on your Synology but you'll have to port forward obviously.

https://support.hidemyass.com/hc/en-us/articles/203067486-Synology-NAS-OpenVPN-Setup

OpenVPN is a fairly new open source technology that uses the OpenSSL library and SSLv3/TLSv1 protocols, along with an amalgam of other technologies, to provide a strong and reliable VPN solution. One of its major strengths is that it is highly configurable, and although it runs best on a UDP port, it can be set to run on any port, including TCP port 443. This makes traffic on it impossible to tell apart from traffic using standard HTTPS over SSL (as used by for example Gmail), and it is therefore extremely difficult to block.

Another advantage of OpenVPN is that the OpenSSL library used to provide encryption supports a number of cryptographic algorithms (e.g. AES, Blowfish, 3DES, CAST-128, Camellia and more), although VPN providers almost exclusively use either AES or Blowfish. 128-bit Blowfish is the default cypher built in to OpenVPN, and although it is generally considered secure, it does have known weaknesses, and even its creator was quoted in 2007 as saying ‘at this point, though, I’m amazed it’s still being used. If people ask, I recommend Twofish instead’.

AES is the newer technology, has no known weaknesses, and thanks to its adoption by the US government for use in protecting ‘secure’ data, is generally considered the ‘gold standard’ when it comes to encryption. The fact that it has a 128-bit block size rather than Blowfish’s 64-bit block size also means that it can handle larger (over 1 GB) files better than Blowfish. However, both ciphers are NIST certified, which while not widely recognized as problem, we have issues with. See below for a discussion about this.

How fast OpenVPN performs depends on the level of encryption employed, but it is generally faster than IPsec.

OpenVPN has become the default VPN connection type, and while natively supported by no platform, is widely supported on most through third party software (including both iOS and Android).

Compared to PPTP and L2TP/IPsec, OpenVPN can be a bit fiddly to set up. When using generic OpenVPN software in particular (such as the standard open source OpenVPN client for Windows), it is necessary to not only download and install the client, but also to download and setup additional configuration files. Many VPN providers get around this configuration problem by supplying customized VPN clients.

Perhaps most importantly in light of the information obtained from Edward Snowden, it seems OpenVPN has not been compromised or weakened by the NSA, and is also (thanks to its use of ephemeral key exchanges, as we will discuss later) immune to NSA attacks on RSA key encryption. Although no-one knows the full capabilities of the NSA for sure, both the evidence and the mathematics strongly point to OpenVPN, if used in conjunction with a strong cipher, being the only VPN protocol that can be considered truly secure.

Pros

Highly configurable
Very secure (probably even against the NSA)
Can bypass firewalls
Can use a wide range of encryption algorithms
Open source (and can therefore be readily vetted for back doors and other NSA style tampering)

Cons

Needs third party software
Can be fiddly to set up
Support on mobile devices is improving, but is not as good as on the desktop
Click to expand...

Taken from: https://www.bestvpn.com/blog/4147/pptp-vs-l2tp-vs-openvpn-vs-sstp-vs-ikev2/

Works fine on Windows, Android and iOS.

ErikN said:
Granted the router is an asus one so i'm probably screwed anyways.
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Based on actual evidence or just what you think?
 
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What kind of internet connection do you have? If you don't have a very good upload speed then sharing over the internet will be a no-no..

The purpose of a NAS is a low powered, always on, shared, local network storage space. Yes, some of them do have features for accessing them remotely, but this isn't their main function.


How do you access it from your PC? After setting mine up, I've not installed a single application/app on any PC or phone that I have. I access the shared files through Windows and NFS shares on my media clients. Then any time I want to make a config change, I just visit https://nas:xxxx
 
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I've got 80/20 fibre and unfortunately, my router doesn't have a VPN server but it does allow VPN Pass Through - which works as I can connect to my work VPN.

I've tried the 3 types of VPN provided by the NAS and neither are allowing an external connection. I've even checked with PlusNet and they don't support it.

There was one comment on the PN forum where someone thinks it could be the firmware version causing the issue and it's cropped up more than once.
 
ErikN said:
Neither had my comment, which you quoted, about security holes in asus routers.
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Your post suggested that due to it being an ASUS router and you VPN into it that you 'are probably screwed'. Your words, not mine.

All I'm doing is pointing out the fact that hosting OpenVPN on an ASUS router is no different to any other router. It's arguably the most secure way into your home network.
 
S2KIP said:
Your post suggested that due to it being an ASUS router that you 'are screwed'. Your words, not mine.

All I'm doing is pointing out the fact that hosting OpenVPN on an ASUS router is no different to any other router. It's arguably the most secure way into your home network.
Click to expand...

Would the router be worth changing?
Which router is it?
 
S2KIP said:
Your post suggested that due to it being an ASUS router and you VPN into it that you 'are probably screwed'. Your words, not mine.

All I'm doing is pointing out the fact that hosting OpenVPN on an ASUS router is no different to any other router. It's arguably the most secure way into your home network.
Click to expand...

Allright, this is getting off-topic, but you misunderstood me. VPN (OpenVPN or others) have nothing to do with, nor can it protect me from someone being able to compromise my home network because of a security flaw in my router. And unfortunately, just in recent years there have been more than one very serious error in the router software Asus use, which make me worried there might be more of them, like something making an attacker able to change the router configuration from the internet.
 
S2KIP said:
I use an RT-N66U with Merlin's firmware on it.

I always VPN into it from my iPhone or Mac/Laptop when out and about.
Click to expand...

Would you rate it? if I do get something to replace the Technicolor, would prefer it to last me for a considerable time.
 
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